March 3, 2004

Talking to Nina and Tonya via the entire world even though I could just go down the hall and see them in person. First, Nina reports a conversation (with me/a fictionalized version of me/someone else entirely) about revealing personal facts in a blog. Here's an excerpt:

[Interlocutor:] Your blog is so personal, I could never blog in that way ... I would never say where it is that I am traveling..

[Nina]: ...that is completely impersonal! I write travel stories on the side, that’s how impersonal travel is in my mind. ...

My reason for not wanting to talk about where I'm traveling until after I've returned is that I don't want strangers to know when I'll be away from home. I thought you weren't even supposed to say you were going away in a public place, where people could eavesdrop, and that you were supposed to cover your name and address on your luggage tags so that people couldn't pick up that information in airports and elsewhere. So announcing your absence to the whole world definitely seems out of the question. Why not tell everyone where you hide your extra keys? For the record, I never hide extra keys, I never leave my house, and if I ever do, you may rest assured the whole place is wired with spring guns and there are several underfed pit bulls roaming about.

Now, Tonya has joined the enlightened, competent TV watchers by getting a TiVo, which she loves but is also concocting conspiracy theories about. Her TiVo is hard at work filling up the 80 hours of hard drive space with shows and she's wondering why it's picking things like Spanish language shows, self-improvement, crappy sitcoms and other things that don't seem much like what she chose for herself. She's positing:

Good-hearted TiVo ...

TiVo Knows Best ...

Petulant TiVo ...

Stealth Marketer Tivo...

I have one more idea: Eager-student TiVo: TiVo just wants to learn and it wants you to be the teacher. Rather than making too many inferences from the first few things you've chosen, it's giving you a chance to input more information. Go through the list of recorded shows and give thumbs up and thumbs down. Teach the humble mechanical student and give it a chance to show you how well it learns.